


A Physics Student In Middle-earth

by Kaylio



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Gen, SI-OC, Self-Insert, Sorry Not Sorry, and indulgent, as in very self-insert, this is me being stressed, very indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 09:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11711382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylio/pseuds/Kaylio
Summary: The intention was to wake up at five so I could do some physics cramming before finals (which was in three days). Somehow that became stumbling into Rivendell, because apparently the world doesn’t care that I needed to revise (for the finals. Which was in three days.) Like, I mean, it’s nice, and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but seriously. I can’t afford to fail my exams. (Which was in three days.)Have I mentioned I have an exam yet? Because I do. And I really cannot afford to fail it. But alas...





	A Physics Student In Middle-earth

The tunes of Tidecaller starts playing, and I reach for my phone with my eyes still closed. Too early. It’s _way_ too early. I begin regretting last-night-me’s ambition. Waking up three hours earlier means three extra hours of revision, which should theoretically translate into decent grades. Should. _Theoretically_. 

My fingers found the phone and unlocked it, which incidentally also stops the alarm. Thank you iPhone for sightless usage. My spectacles are beside it, so I put them on with a sigh. 

Then I fall. 

You know that sensation of falling even though you _know_ you’re on your bed and thus not moving? Or that weird, uncontrollable twitch/kick/flail that sometimes occur just when you’re about to fall asleep?

This feels like a combination of both. 

I open my eyes and see bright blue skies, framed on both sides by craggy rocks. 

What. 

What. 

Did someone steal my ceiling. 

The thought is absurd and I blink. Sit up. It’s cold, wherever this not-my-bed is. I’m wearing a set of teal pyjamas that got really stretchy over time, and my shoulders do not welcome this chill. 

Frick. I think I’m out of the country. Singapore is never cold. 

Okay. I gotta do something. 

I stand up, and something clattered onto the rocks. Bless! Behold! The great Phone! 

Now I have 97% battery with which to get home. Getting kidnapped or mysteriously spatially displaced probably gives me a valid excuse to miss exams. Probably. This is great!

Well, as long as I don’t get _actually_ kidnapped, captured, tortured, raped, starved, dehydrated, frozen, eaten, mauled, shot, or trafficked in wherever this place is.*

* * *

*Though if those happened, I take comfort in the idea that if I don’t die, I can probably write a book about it. Might even become a best seller. And I’ll still get a pass on the exams. 

* * *

 The phone says there’s no Singtel around here, which just confirms my thought that this ain’t no Singapore. 

I pick a direction—forward—and walk, shivering. There’s a steep rock cliff on either side, and I can try to climb upwards, but a) no shoes, b) it’s tall. I can climb the walls in my narrow hallway to touch the ceiling, but that was barely three metres tall. This is… twenty? 

If there’s no way out of this place, though, I’ll have to do it. 

The path takes a turn, and I stop. 

I know this place. 

In a movie. 

From a movie. 

This is the exact landscape from the scene in the Hobbit where Bilbo and crew first saw Rivendell. I know this because it was my phone _and_ laptop’s wallpaper, two wallpapers back. 

There’s waterfalls, bridges, pretty buildings, everything*. 

* * *

 *Except the dramatic elvish background music. And the dwarves.

* * *

Holy shit. 

I feel like I’m in 70% of all LOTR fanfiction. And 80% of the Hobbit ones. 

Okay, okay, okay, okay chill. I’ll just find a way across all these bridges, get to Rivendell, see if its _actually Rivendell_ , and… and… er. Tell Elrond about the plot, so he can decide if he wanna do anything about it?

Yeah okay, that seems like a plan. I’ll decide everything else once I get there. 

I look around for the path down the cliff, and continue walking. The stone is freezing, and I am honestly very cold right now. Very very cold. There is snow. Oh gods, I’m in a Middle-earth winter in very thin non-cotton pyjamas with no shoes. 

I speed up dramatically, rubbing my hands together. I would run, but there’s snow on the stairs, _which has no railings_ , and I have zero wish of falling into the valley below. So I jog, taking the steps two at a time. 

In this part of the Hobbit, you get a cutscene. In Fellowship of the Ring, you get a longer cutscene. 

Finally, I appreciate how much time they had skipped in those cutscenes. 

Also, I have passed the point of feeling cold and went into numb territory. This is probably bad. Once my feet hit the (stone cold) bridge that leads to the buildings, I start running. It warms me up a little, though I still can’t really feel my feet. The cold also seemed to have awoken my cramps, which begins in earnest. 

To spare you a lot of swearing and nasty thoughts, I present a time-skip of four minutes and forty-one second, at which point I have come into the circular pavilion place that was where Lindir met the Company. 

There is a guard on duty, in beautiful polished armour. It is really very beautiful and very cool. So is the elf.*

* * *

*I swear, if my ovaries weren’t already exploding, they would probably have done so when I saw him. 

* * *

All that nonsense about how an Elf could just hide his/her ears and be mistaken as human? Bullshit. 

I may not have known what, exactly, Elves look like or whether this is _really truly_ The Rivendell, but one glance at him and I knew. There’s a sort of… fundamental, indescribable difference between us. I’d sooner mistake a chimpanzee for my cousin than an elf for my species, really. 

He holds up a spear? falchion? a long weapon with a big blade at its end as I near, not quite pointing it threateningly yet. 

“Dar–” The rest of his sentence is some string of incomprehensible words. 

Damn. Language difference? 

“Hi!” I say, trying to smile and breath heavily at the same time. “Do you have spare clothes?” 

The elf frowns. Opens his mouth. Another string of incomprehensible words, seemingly different from what he said before. 

Dammit. I couldn’t have been in a fic where Westron is English? 

Perhaps Westron shares some similarities with Chinese. 

I try a few words. 

Westron does not share similarities with Chinese. 

I shiver again and try very hard to faint. That usually works for people, right? Surely the elves won’t ignore an unconscious person on their doorstep. 

It doesn’t work. 

Fortunately, the guard seems to note my horribly unsuitable attire. With another word, _To_ -something, he gestured at me and turned to walk into the city. 

Praise the lord, I am in!

The chill seems to abate a little, such that my fingers have warmed enough to feel the finer details on my phone cover. 

I follow the guard in his pretty armour (my knight in shining armour?) to a room up some stairs. The door is shut, and he knocks on it, waiting for an acknowledgement before opening it. He says something, a description of how he found a little mad girl running barefoot on the bridge, probably, and leaves the room respectfully. 

Have I mentioned who is the occupant of the room? 

No? 

Well. Lord Elrond of Imladris smiles benevolently at me. 

This is many dreams coming true at once, I swear, but currently all I appreciate right this moment is the fireplace. 

Elrond seems to understand, and is kind enough to let me warm up before saying anything. As more brain functions kick in, I begin to appreciate the room. The pillars are delicately ornamented, and the desk that Elrond sits at is made of some dark coloured wood, with little twists and curls etched into its legs. The Elf-lord himself is regal and majestic, and damn if his circlet wasn’t something I’d really want. His robe is brown, with semi-billowy sleeves that’s lined with gold. 

I decide to try speaking first. 

“Mae govannen?” 

Oh gods, that sounds like terrible cringe. See, usually, I only _type_ bits of Sindarin. It’s a very far cry from saying it. 

Elrond looks puzzled. 

“I’m sorry, that was a butchery of Sindarin.” 

Is Sindarin _Sin_ darin or Sin _dar_ in? I have no idea at all. 

Elrond walks over, and I can tell he’s speaking Sindarin extra slowly, but it doesn’t help because I have a vocabulary of all of twenty words, 90% of which are names. 

Time to do it the caveman way, as embarrassing as that is. 

I indicate myself. “Alice.” 

“Alice,” Elrond repeats, matching my pronunciation. 

Now I can’t screw up his name, because that’s just humiliating when he got mine right on the first try. It’s okay. I have written it many times already. I know its approximate pronunciation. 

“Ehlrand.” 

Oh no. 

“Elrond?”

Elrond smiles a little bit, so I assume I’m not entirely off. 

“Imladris?” I say, and gesture around. I’d say Rivendell, but Tolkien is some linguistic genius and translated all Westron words into English, so it’s likely an unknown word here too. 

He nods, looking a little sterner. 

If, like all other fics, I happen to be around the time when the plot is occurring, then winter means…

The Fellowship is leaving. 

Wow. This is potentially such a historical moment, if I'm not wrong and it's not just another ordinary Middle-earth winter. 

“Do you have a pencil?” I ask, making exaggerated writing motions. 

Elrond stares at me for a while before his expression clears. From a drawer he takes out a bottle of ink and a fountain pen, and laid them both on a sheet of paper.*

* * *

*It could be parchment or papyrus or special elvish paper. I wouldn’t know.

* * *

Cautiously, I took the pen and pushed my specs up. This is going to end up in splotches, I just know it. 

I drew a line, winced when the pen stayed too long at one end and left a blotch of ink, drew another line and had to re-dip the pen because it ran out of ink, and ended up with a very ugly cuboid that is supposed to be a bed.

Elrond will be very disappointed if he is expecting me to write in Westron or Sindarin. My experience with Tengwar is as much as my experience with horses. That is to say, admired them from afar, touched them exactly once, and spent a while noting the roundness of their rump. 

I put a stick figure next to the bed for a generic representation of me in my natural habitat. 

Whatever he thinks of this waste of ink and paper, Elrond remains thoughtfully silent. Hopefully, he wouldn’t put me in Rivendell prison for what’s next. 

I drew an approximately circular ring with approximately the same thickness all round, and scribbled in it. That’s the One Ring. An arrow from it led to nine people, four tall stick figures, and five, shorter, rounder people. The one designated Gandalf receives a hat, Aragorn gets a round crown-like thing if you squint, Legolas a bow, and Boromir a very cartoonish tree above his head.*

* * *

*It sounds like a very bad drawing in the description. It is a very bad drawing. However I would like it known that I do have some skills in art, as long as it’s a 2B pencil I’m holding, not a dip pen.

* * *

Figure designated Frodo gets a black mop that accidentally smudged and became a black oval, while the one that represents Gimli has an axe beside him. 

Elrond’s smile has faded, and he looks at me and my drawing with an unreadable expression. 

A distance away, I drew a volcano, boxed by mountain ranges in three directions. That should represent Mordor well enough. 

Looking up, I point the pen at the figure with the wizard’s hat. 

Seemingly right on cue, the door opened and Gandalf walks in. 

I look at him, then added a stick beside drawing-Gandalf for some accuracy. 

The wizard looks back, and questions Elrond. 

I stare at him again, but even though I know— _I know_ —that he is secretly a higher being, an angelic entity on a mission, I don’t see it. He only looks old, wizened, and kind like somebody’s grandfather. 

It makes sense, of course. If someone like me could recognise his ethereal origins at a glance, then the Istari’s mission would be pretty moot. Still… 

Hold on, Gandalf can do some mind-reading if I recall correctly. He did it to Frodo in the books. 

“Mithrandir,” I say, hoping that it wasn’t too mangled. Both of them looked at me. Alright. How does one mime ‘can you do your mind-reading thing on me because there’s things I thought you should know?’

The first attempt earned a puzzled look. The second is more successful. I don’t think the meaning went through, though, since he pursed his lips and seemed to compare my hair and Elrond’s. 

No, I’m not trying to insinuate that I’m Elrond’s secret half-daughter sent away to Earth. That makes no sense. We don’t even resemble. Anyway, I agree that Elrond has the better hair, so there’s no competition either. 

Try for something that would definitely get their attention. Hopefully I remembered the verse right. 

“Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg krimpatul, argh burzum ishi—wait no sorry. Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk, argh burzum ishi krimpatul.”

The atmosphere didn’t turn as dark as it had when Gandalf recited it, probably because Gandalf a) pronounced it correctly and b) said the lines in order. I am mildly disappointed but glad for it, because at least it proves that I am no spy of Sauron, right? 

Both of them took a moment to understand my words, but they become very cold when they did. Gandalf says something to me, bullet-fast, and I caught the word ‘Sauron’ in his speech. 

Again, I gesture at him and point to my head. Vaguely, I remember the name of the act as Osanwe-kenta (or kanta, but since they’ve had a while to adjust to my atrocious accent the meaning ought to be clear enough), and says so. 

He presses a hand to my forehead and exhales. I can’t tell if he’s doing anything, but he probably is. I am a little disappointed. Many fics show characters drawn into their mindscapes when people are doing telepathy acts—I’d have liked to poke around my own head from the inside.*

* * *

*Really, it seems like something that can be very enlightening and insightful. Meet your own consciousness? Explore the subconscious? Yes please. I’d have hypnotised the procrastination out of me**. God knows how much time I’ve already spent determinedly not-doing physics. 

* * *

* * *

**Hm, there’s a thought… _I_ can’t. But I do know of _somebody_ in lovely Middle-earth who _can_. (Or at least, I think she can.)

* * *

Elrond seems quite prepared to chill and let Gandalf do his thing, moving back to his desk to take out some papers. I try to look at him, but Gandalf is still staring very intensely at my eyebrows and doesn’t seem inclined to let me move my head. 

I take to staring at his beard instead, falling close to my face as it is. It’s a magnificent beard, I judge. Not wispy or thin. It’s very thick and bushy. I’m a little surprised to note that the grey of it comes not from a mixture of black and white hairs, as is the norm in all old (human) people, but rather because his hair is grey. Evenly light grey. 

It’s interesting. 

Also, thank the gods that Gandalf seems to have a good sense of hygiene. I smell only smoke on him, and not days-old sweat or body odour or food bits or something. With his beard that close, I’d have been absolutely disgusted otherwise, and it pains me to have to unlove a character because of something as small but vital as body hygiene. 

Not that smoke is a good smell, anyway. It’s certainly not a cigarette smell (double thank the gods. I detest those), but it’s not exactly an incense or candle smell either. It’s a small step back from _no smell_ , but I’d take possible-pipeweed over cigarettes any day. 

But wow, his eyes though. 

The light’s good and I admire their grey-blueness. As an Asian with extremely common brown eyes and extremely common black hair, I’ve always thought that grey would be a nice change. 

Is very pretty. 

Do I gotta hashtag nohomo myself if it’s hetero platonic? 

Whatever. Hashtag noromance. 

Whoever’s writing this strange fanfic I wandered in had better not set me up with people. Hashtag underage, hashtag teenpreg, hashtag romeo&juliet, hashtag notinterested, hashtag nosmut, hashtag average-age-of-ME-characters-is-60*.

* * *

*More or less. A great deal lot more if you count Elrond, Galadriel, Treebeard, Gandalf/Saruman/Sauron, Dwalin, Erestor, and any other elf. That’ll bring the average age up to… 4000 years old. Or more. Círdan is legit older than the sun and moon. 

* * *

I would, however, welcome the sight of any and all hot people. Of any race. And species. 

Sure would make a good change from looking at my classmates all day. 

Is Gandalf done yet? 

I think he’s done. 

‘Something something,’ he says to Elrond, pulling back. 

‘Something-thing something,’ Elrond says back.*

* * *

*A rough transcript by me. Rely at your own risk.

* * *

“?” I express.

They turn. 

Elrond stands up and beckons me to follow. Gandalf steps behind. 

Great, can I stay? No one’s this genial with captives, right? (Does Rivendell have dungeons? Curious.) Then again, they let _Gollum_ have pretty much free rein, so I suppose even being a prisoner wouldn’t be too bad. 

A sneeze. 

Shuck. Please don’t get sick. Can’t afford to be sick. Or at least, can’t afford to be sick for physics. My class participation grades suck. As in, average test score 3/10 kind of suck. If they measured my overall from that I'm thoroughly screwed. 

Also, while stone floors are very shiny and everything, they’re _freezing_. I tip-toe, bouncing a little from one foot to another to minimise contact. Elrond hastens. I’d say that elven chivalry is somewhat lacking, but neither he nor Gandalf has removable clothing bits, so I can hardly expect one of them to offer a jacket (or a cloak, as appears to be Middle-earth fashion). 

I would say something nice about the architecture as we are passing, but being cold regresses me to basic functions of walk, stop, and _I would kill someone for a minute of Singapore’s hottest day right now_. 

On full tip-toes, I am still half a head shorter than Elrond. He’s tall. Gandalf has about 30 cm added to his height because of his hat, but I reckon that I’m eye-level with him when I stand flat on the ground. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m falling alongside him, but I don’t think he’d have minded much now. Too deep in thought. 

Oh dear. An open invite into the mind of a modern teenager was _probably_ _not_ the best idea. _What did he see_. 

Bless him, bless me. It’s too late. 

Elrond opens a door to a room, which seems to be a store room with the number of wardrobes inside, and pulls out a dress and some inner-wear stuff. I hope I’m not as red as I feel myself to be, because when I envision going to Middle-earth, I have always thought it’d be me doing cool stuff and being chill and interesting and making friends with everyone (as unlikely as that’d ever be). I’ve never imagined Elrond picking… _clothes_ … for me. Ever. At all. 

It’s okay. I have no shame. This is perfectly normal. Normal. 

Except that this is Elrond (!!!!!). And Gandalf (!!!!!) is beside me. And there’s the tiny little fact that THIS. IS. ARDAA! 

I died a little inside. Goodbye, dignity. Glad to have met you. Feel free to return _anytime._

He lays them on a surface, and there’s a general indication that I should probably change into those. I assume that these were Arwen’s older clothes, because he probably wouldn’t just take clothes from Arwen or some elf’s existing wardrobe. When I nod, he shoos Gandalf out and shuts the door behind him. 

My dad always said that one shouldn’t strip in a foreign environment because perverts and pinhole-cameras, but I think I’m rather safe from that. 

Also. An important matter: do elves have pads. Do they even have _those_. 

Shit. They only have kids once or twice a lifetime right. I don’t think human physiology works on them. 

Deer god, this is going to be embarrassing. 

I work my way into the surprisingly thick dress of light blue. It… nearly fits. Evidently Arwen is far fitter than me. And has less booty. 

Okay right, I will not make Elrond, Holder of a Three, High Noldo Elf Lord of Imladris, He with Great Foresight and who Lived For Three Ages, suffer the indignity of having to pick out more clothes. 

This _will_ fit. 

…

Congratulations me, I made that fabric fit.*

* * *

*There was a small tearing sound, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been a bad rip. 

* * *

If I hold my breath, _all is well_. 

It feels incredibly soft, and is long enough to crumple over my feet. Seems like Arwen also has supermodel legs. Like this, even bare feet felt pretty warm.

There is no mirror, so I wipe the phone screen with the dress’ sleeve and take a look. It seems okay. If I were any good at colours, I could probably wax a lot of poetics on how the shades of blue shimmered and mixed into other shades of blues under the beam of cold sunlight from a window, but I’m not, so I don’t.

Phone battery is still at 97%. I turn on both battery saving and airplane mode, just in case. And also took a quick selfie, because elven dress!

That done, I fold my pyjamas in half and drape them over my shoulder, because it doesn’t seem right to just leave them here.

Elrond and Gandalf are conversing in what I presume to be Sindarin when I came out of the door. The elf-lord takes a look and smiles a little. I smile back, because that seems the natural thing to do.  

He motions again, and shows me a different room not too far away. There’s a bed in this one, so I think he means that I can sleep in it. 

I really need to learn myself some Sindarin. Pantomiming and assuming is going to get me in a terrible misunderstanding some time. 

In all the fics I’ve read, people generally seem to stay in Middle-earth for a pretty long time—that is, if they don’t have some ability to universe-hop—so if that trend follows, I might be here for a few months. Sauron is ended sometime in March, and Dol Guldur is broken by Galadriel shortly after in April, I think. Most fics seem to be under the assumption that the Ring’s destruction basically equals end of story, everyone goes home, happily ever after, The End. I’ll tentatively take that as truth, because since this is happening to _me_ , it could have happened to someone else too, who could have written and put it online as a fiction piece. This means that I have three months to spend here, after which some mysterious thing will occur and land me back on Earth. 

I _hope_ that’s three months of me in Rivendell, and not me trooping across the land. Which means I’ll have to learn Sindarin fast. 

Lord help me. 

This is a person who has consistently failed Japanese in the three years she took it. Learn a new language in three months? Ahahahahahano. 

And after that, either I miss three months of Earth time or I go back to where I left. Which is the morning of my physics exam. 

 _Which is incidentally 80% of the entire grade_. 

 _Which I really really need to pass_. 

Well. Shuck. Luck. Tuck. Fudge. 

I know myself. This means I know that if I don’t do any physics _at all_ for the next three months, I am going to fail that shit. 

I love LOTR and Arda. I really, really, really do. Honest. Just ask my friends. But… seriously? Now? This one day in the one week where I should most definitely not be distracted is the one I end up in Middle-so fricking awesome-earth? 

Can thy Greater Powers not??

Elrond has summoned an elf from somewhere, and told her somethings. I think it’s along the lines of ‘please take care of this person because she speaketh not our language’, and then leaves with Gandalf. I stare after them as walk down the corridor, and turn to the elf. 

She’s also very pretty, with black hair and dark eyes. I take back everything I said about black Asian hair being unable to look good in complex braids*, because she has the most fabulous french-braids** I have ever seen. 

* * *

*Though… I’m 68% sure that someone with lighter-coloured hair like blond or brown would look even better in that. Black is terrible at showing depth and details. 

* * *

* * *

**Note: french braids to this person means anything from a hair-net-like-weave, to two braids twined together. Just so we’re on the same page. 

* * *

“Hi,” I say, because it sounds like the most amiable thing to say at the moment. 

“Len suilon,” says the elf, with a little bow. 

It takes me far too long to realise that ‘suilon’ meant either ‘greetings’ or ‘welcome’. I should start noting what the Sindarin phrases I’ve used in writings really mean. 

“Len sooy-lon,” I repeat, because why not start learning the language now? 

“Nah,” the elf says. 

A little faster, I repeat the phrase. “Len suilon.” 

“Ná,” the elf repeats, a little confused, and I realise that I’ve misheard. 

“That is a yes?” I ask, but gives up the question because neither of us will understand the other’s reply. 

“Alice,” I say instead, resorting to the Og and Ug method of point and say. 

“Galweth,” says the elf. 

Galweth. Alright, I can remember that. 

Points at a tree. “Tree?” 

“Galadh.” 

A lock of hair—or the entire collective hair—is ‘fing’. 

Learn Sindarin: Challenge Accepted.*

* * *

*I am going to Die, without Dignity, Love, and Shame in a week. Gods—Valar have mercy on my soul.

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Highly indulgent piece I wrote at the eve of an exam, and am continuing now, at the eve of another exam. 
> 
> Sigh @ exams. If it gets progressively wilder, you know it's because all the physics got to my brain.


End file.
